ENG 574: Gender and Informal Science Writing - Sarah Felicelli

Levine, Tamar and Zehava Geldman-Caspar. 1996. "Informal Science Writing Produced by Boys and Girls: Writing Preference and Quality." British Educational Research Journal. 22 (4): 421-439.

I received this article from Paul Wyss as a possibility for my research topic. This study examines the effect of gender on science writing. The researchers conducted the study with seventh grade boys and girls in the United States. In the study, students were given five different options for a writing assignment and were asked to choose one. Each option had a theme associated with it and the five themes were "an expressive mode,...a descriptive answer,...a narrative,...a dialogue,...and...a free writing task." What the researchers found was that out of the five options, most students chose one of the first three:

1. Think of an experience that you had that is related to something you learned in science. Write about this experience.
2. Suppose you are a scientist. What would you like to invent? Describe the invention and explain why it would be useful.
3. Suppose you could take a trip through the human body. Describe your trip.

Out of those three, girls were more likely to choose any of the first three options while boys most often chose the descriptive answer option (Number 2).

The researchers also found that there were differences in how girls and boys answered the questions. For instance, for Number 1, girls were more likely to use examples of things they had learned in their class; however, boys included examples of outside experiences.

Overall, I thought that this study was excellent. The methodology was sound (large sample size, and a high interrater reliability), and it would be a fascinating study to expand. However, it does not relate to my research topic. An exciting path of research would be to see if there is any gender preference of science writing style for readers or if the preferences observed in this study only relate to the writer. It was an extremely interesting article!

ENG 574: Improve Scientific Writing and Avoid Perishing - Sarah Felicelli

Carraway, Leslie N. 2006. "Improve Scientific Writing and Avoid Perishing." American Midland Naturalist. 155: 383-394. This article analyzes what is wrong with scientific writing in scholarly journals and discusses how researchers can improve their communication of scientific concepts along with their chances of being published. Carraway explains the common mistakes that writers make in scientific publications (she focuses mostly on the mistakes) and makes recommendations on how to avoid those common mistakes. In Carraway's opinion, the title is the most important part of a scientific document. She points out that the title must be concise and explanatory so that the article will be easily found in database searches. In addition, if the title does not accurately reflect what is discussed in the article, the reader will become frustrated and move on to another article. Her recommendations for titles include:

• Don't use a question for a title


• Don't use a sentence or abstract format for a title


• Avoid subtitles and hanging titles


• Avoid acronyms or jargon


• Make sure that word order is appropriate

For the text portion of an article, Carraway discusses many common mistakes of writers that include misusing words, misplaced modifiers, use of acronyms and jargon, dangling participles and use of passive voice. At the end of the article, there is an extensive appendix with a list of commonly misused words.

Many, if not all, of the writing suggestions are ones that most English majors have learned in grammar classes; however, the examples that the author provides are specific to scientific writing. She does an excellent job of showing actual examples of errors in titles and texts and how writers can avoid those mistakes. This article is extremely useful for anyone who is interested in improving their writing in the sciences, but it only indirectly applies to my topic. Carraway's discussion is specific to scholarly journals and she clarifies that she is focusing on readers who have a "moderate knowledge of science." The focus of my study is to determine how technical writers can communicate information to those people who do not have a basic understanding of science. I will definitely use this article as a resource for my own writing in the future though!

ENG 574: The Science of Scientific Writing - Sarah Felicelli

Article Citation
Gopen, George D., and Judith A. Swan. 1990. “The Science of Scientific Writing.” American Scientist. 78: 550-558.

Summary of Article
In this article, Gopen and Swan suggest several tips for science writers to ensure clear communication of scientific concepts. Their suggestions, listed below, increase the level of both text coherence and text cohesion:

1.Avoid separating the verb from the subject. When verbs do not closely follow their subject in a sentence, readers have to expend extra energy to search for or re-read the document to find the action of the subject. Readers should not have to work that hard to comprehend what the writer is trying to say.

2.Make only one point in each part of prose (sentence, paragraph, and chapter).

3.Important or new information belongs in the “stress position” of the sentence. The “stress position” is the position, at the end of a sentence or an independent clause that is emphasized by readers (552). Writers should not put unimportant information at the point of emphasis or put important information at the beginning of the sentence where it might be overlooked.

4.“Save the Best for Last” and “First Things First” (554). In other words, put old information in the beginning of a sentence or a paragraph, and put new information at the end of a sentence or a paragraph. This follows the recommendation by Isakson and Spyridakis (1999) and Carolyn Rude (2006) who emphasize starting with the familiar and then introducing new information. Gopen and Swan (1990) refer to this as “linkage (looking backward) and context (looking forward)” (554).

Analysis and Reflection
Dr. George D. Gopen is a professor in the English Department at Duke University. He has written several books on writing with the reader in mind. Dr. Judith A. Swan is a professor at Princeton University where she teaches scientific writing. Her background is in biochemistry and she received her PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This article doesn't have much of a literature review, and the 4 articles in its bibliography are not cited in the text. However, it includes general information on how to improve scientific writing by looking at text through the eyes of a reader. One interesting aspect of this article is that it includes examples of text excerpts that are rewritten throughout the article to illustrate how changing the syntax or semantics of a text can affect what the reader understands. This article will be extremely useful for my literature review.